FROM THIS EPISODE

Americans are supposed to be equal under the law, but the Great Recession renewed awareness of economic inequality. On this Fourth of July, we talk about how that's revealed in some of the films available for this summer's viewing. Also, the first reform of the US tax code in 30 years will start with a "blank slate," and back to reality when the White House and the Capitol were really burned down. (Rebroadcast of today's To the Point.)

Banner image: Jason Clarke as George Wilson, Tobey Maguire as Nick Carraway and Joel Edgerton as Tom Buchanan in Warner Bros' The Great Gatsby

Living Americans remember September 11, and even Pearl Harbor, when the country was attacked from the outside. There was another "perilous fight" during the War of 1812, when Washington's best-known buildings were burned to the ground. Steve Vogel, staff reporter at the Washington Post, is a historian and author of Through the Perilous Fight: Six Weeks that Saved the Nation.

After yesterday’s ouster of Mohamed Morsi, Egypt’s first elected President, his interim replacement has called for early elections. Morsi’e Muslim Brotherhood supporters say they won’t work with what they call “usurper authorities.” Borzou Daragahi reports from Cairo for the Financial Times.

It's been two years since Occupy Wall Street dramatized the increasing concentration of wealth in America's upper social stratosphere. That's about the time it takes to create and produce a movie and, sure enough, some of the latest Hollywood fare has more than a tinge of class-consciousness. There's social warfare in a future dystopia, magicians who pull off Robin Hood-style heists and Los Angeles teenagers who burglarize the homes of the rich and famous. How well do they mirror today's social reality? Is that what movies should do?